Sophie Ellis-Bextor - Familia Album Review

It’s easy to forget Sophie Ellis-Bextor started out in the late-Nineties as singer for indierockers theaudience. She has always been something of a chameleon, however, scoring a massive hit in 2000 with Spiller’s immaculate disco-styled Groovejet – which went on to become the decade’s most played single – and notching up more electro-pop hits before drafting in Ed Harcourt for 2014’s sophisticated but more low-key Wanderlust. Harcourt – whose recent Furnaces album has underlined his place as one of the country’s fi nest songwriters – is present again for her sixth studio album.
His influence can be heard most notably on the string-heavy Here Comes The Rapture, an earnestly
rhapsodic ode to true love fi lled with grandiloquent statements like “In the midst of renaissance you inspire me to live”. It’s evident, too, on Unrequited, where Ellis- Bextor’s well-spoken warble sits alongside Matthew Caws’ (of evergreen indie rockers Nada Surf) on a baroque pop paean to true love that, this time, has been thwarted. Harcourt, though, has proven himself skilled at more dramatic tracks, too, just as Ellis-Bextor has shown herself as adept at shifting moods as she is at shifting styles. On My Puppet Heart, their increasingly pugnacious attitude slips effortlessly into a chorus reminiscent of ELO; Hush Little Voices fi nds them sharing their love for Latin America by layering cheerful mariachi horns over troubled references to anxiety, and Death Of Love combines guitars that sound like they were nabbed from Joy Division with keyboards as optimistic as the song’s declaration that “What we’ve created/ It cannot be undone”. But Familia’s two standout tracks are Wild Forever and Crystallise. The former – an effervescent, galloping pop tune, her voice at its sweetest as it rushes towards an ecstatic chorus – remains closest to the dancefl oor-friendly Ellis-Bextor template with which we’re most familiar. The latter – a lush, mid-paced slice of piano-led elegance – confi rms that she remains one of our more refi ned pop stars. Theaudience may be forgotten, but Ellis-Bextor’s audience has every reason to remain loyal.